In a Nippon Television news program that aired March 12, a comedian used the word “inu,” which means “dog” and was apparently intended as a pun on Ainu, when a documentary about an Ainu ...

The Ainu believe that the world rests on the back of a giant trout, that otters caused human beings to be flawed, and that seeing an owl fly across the face of the moon at night is cause for great ...

According to Jirota Mokottunas Kitahara, an associate professor at Hokkaido University’s Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies, dog has been used to belittle the Ainu people since olden days.